


Artemis Rising

by clairza



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Acadamy AU, F/M, Pilots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 20:46:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4236045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clairza/pseuds/clairza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Word document for this was titled "Academy pilots go on a beach holiday and there is outmaking" for about a year. That should give you a hint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artemis Rising

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 11/1/2009
> 
> From 2009:  
> I was cleaning out my WIP folder, and stumbled across this - I'd written it at someone's challenge, and there were about six or seven pages, which was about five more than I thought I'd done. I reread it and liked it and then it took over two days of my life, and now it's 24 pages long. I am aware that it's shamelessly self-indulgent, but how long has it been since, well, anyone on BSG was happy onscreen? Way too long.

Three hours after their last exam – astrophysics, a McAllister special – Lee feels like his brain has been scooped out with a spoon, run through a blender and thrown back into his head with no consideration for order.  
  
“This break is going to suck,” he says, and glances over to where Kara is lying on her stomach on his bed, crumpling her study notes into neat paper balls. He slams a textbook shut and then winces. “Dad’s coming home, and Mom’ll probably spend half the time yelling at him, and Zak’s off on some camping trip so he won’t even be there – are you even listening to me?”  
  
She rolls onto her side slightly, and one of her paper missiles flies past him and into his wastepaper basket.  
  
“Your break is going to suck,” she replies, her bare feet waving lazily to and fro. “Because your parents will fight and Zak’s away. And you have a headache, and question three on the paper was far too difficult for the marks it was worth.”  
  
“Oh,” he says, a little taken aback by her rather succinct account of the last twenty minutes. “Right.”  
  
She nods, and another ball hits the edge of the wastebasket and bounces inside. “Are you having fun there?” he says, knowing he sounds irritated, which he also knows is exactly the wrong tack to take with Kara Trace.  
  
Sure enough, she smirks. “Much.”  
  
“Shouldn’t you be packing?”  
  
“No?”  
  
“No?” he says, shoving his notes into a folder haphazardly and shoving it into his overcrowded shelf. “Where are you going?”  
  
“Nowhere.” Another paper ball lands in his wastebasket.  
  
“Why not?”  
  
She shrugs. “I have my reasons,” she says with that infuriating smile on her face, and he doesn’t have patience for it anymore.  
  
“Are you capable of giving a straight answer?”  
  
Kara shrugs, and throws three more balls at the wastebasket. Two miss.  
  
“Kara?” he prompts, and then her chin rises and the look on her face informs him that somewhere in there he missed the cue where he was supposed to shut the frak up.  
  
“I’m not going anywhere,” she snaps, “Because my family would prefer it if I was in another frakking star system. So I don’t need to pack, because for the next week I’m going to be cleaning lecture rooms so I can earn some sim time so I don’t go insane, like every other vacation I’ve had here since we’ve been here.”  
  
Kara stands up before he can think of anything resembling a graceful recovery.  
  
“Happy, Lee?” she says. “Is that a straight enough answer for you?”  
  
“I – Kara – “  
  
“Have fun packing,” she says over her shoulder, and the door shuts behind her.  
  
Lee sinks down onto his bed, and his headache is now nothing compared to the knowledge that he’s known Kara long enough to call her a friend for a year now, and not once did ever notice anything to make him think his cocky, confident wingman was hiding anything of that magnitude.  
  
The hurt look in her eyes is on his mind the whole night.  
  
*  
  
The next morning Lee makes a few phone calls, and when everything has been organized and his credit card has been used for the first time in three months, and he’s had the pleasure of telling his mother that no, he has plans this week, he tracks Kara down in the quad.   
  
She's lying on her stomach poking sticks upright in the grass. He sits down beside her, and he can see the tension in her shoulders.  
  
“So,” he says casually, and he’s very proud of the way his voice doesn’t shake at all. “I hear the Aegean Peninsula is nice this time of year.”  
  
“It probably is.”  
  
“I’ve booked a unit.”  
  
“Where are you going with this, Lee?”  
  
He clears his throat. “I want you to come. It’s just for the week – “  
  
“Lee –” She cuts him off, sitting up and hugging her knees to her chest and he can almost see her anger rising. He might not know everything about her but he knows that she has never, ever accepted pity from anyone.  
  
“Oh, shut up, Kara,” he says, tiredly. “I’m being selfish, okay? I don’t want to spend a week at home, I just want to go somewhere where I can lie in the sun and sleep and not think about anything resembling physics or Washburne Gauntlets. And I’m not going by myself.”  
  
There’s a pause, and he can feel the offer hanging between them, suspended on the finest of threads, and he barely breathes as he waits for her reaction. Then:  
  
“Lee,” Kara says, softly. “Are you afraid of being alone?”  
  
“Oh, frak you.” He reaches over and punches her arm, hard enough to sting but she only laughs harder.  
  
“No, really, Lee – scared of the dark?”  
  
“Starbuck – ”  
  
“No, I’ll come. Wouldn’t want you frightened by the monsters in your closet.”  
  
“I take it all back. You are the last person I want to spend any time with,” he tells her, and she chokes back the last of her laughter and shuffles a little closer to him.  
  
“As long as there’s a bar close by,” she tells him, bumping his shoulder with hers.  
  
“Of course. Who do you think is buying my drinks?”  
  
“In your dreams, Apollo.”  
  
“Be packed by oh-eight-hundred tomorrow, Starbuck, or I’m leaving you behind.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” she says, waving a hand dismissively, but her face is glowing and he thinks just for a second there is something like gratitude in her eyes, and that makes him grin like an idiot.  
  
*  
  
For once, she’s actually ready on time, standing outside her dorm block with her duffel next to her on the pavement. He pulls over and she climbs in, throwing her bag into the back seat and hitting his shoulder in the process.  
  
“Ow! Gods, be careful!”  
  
“Whatever, Lee,” she says, and while he’s muttering things about manners being a foreign concept and it’s his car and  _would she mind?_  she digs out a music chip out of her pocket, and reaches for the audio controls.  
  
“My car, my music!” he protests, but it’s too late, because she’s already swapped the chips.   
  
“Relax, Lee.” Her eyes are dancing. “I promise you’ll like it.”  
  
Three songs in, he has to admit that Kara has what he describes to her as ‘surprisingly good taste’, and once she’s reached over and hit him, and he’s hit her back and she’s rearranged herself in the passenger seat, things have gone back to comfortable.  
  
“When did you make this?” he asks idly, as she winds her window down and pushes her hair back from her face.  
  
“Last night,” she says, “You can’t have a road trip without a soundtrack, Apollo. Gods, where have you been living all these years?”  
  
*  
  
It’s just over five hours to the beach, and Kara falls asleep with two hours to go. He toys with the idea of waking her up, but she really had looked tired – paler than he’s used to seeing her, and when he glances at her she seems small and crumpled, with her head bumping against the window whenever they go over a rough spot of the road. Besides, Lee’s feeling magnanimous – he’s on vacation and he’s not going home, there’s the prospect of cold beer and fish and chips to look forward to – so he lets her sleep for exactly one hour and fifty minutes before turning the music up almost as loud as it will go.  
  
She jerks awake, and the look on her face is priceless, once she’s shaken the last vestiges of sleep away. “Was that really necessary?”  
  
“No,” he says cheerfully.  
  
She rolls her eyes and rubs her face. “How long was I out?”  
  
“We’re almost there, put it that way.”  
  
*  
  
They check into their room – Kara gleefully claiming the biggest bed, although both are far bigger than anything they get back at the dorms. Within two seconds, she’s dumped her duffel, opened it, picked through it for her swimsuit and is bouncing into the bathroom to change.  
  
“Come on, Lee,” she says over her shoulder, and as the door slides shut he looks mournfully at the mess she’s just created chucking things out of her bag.  
  
"It's the middle of the day!" he says, unzipping his duffel and digging through it to find his beach things.   
  
"It's the middle of the afternoon!"  
  
"I just drove five hours!"  
  
"Then stay here if you want. I'm going swimming."  
  
He rolls his eyes even though she can't see him. " _Fine._  Don't come out, I'm changing."   
  
Kara's laugh sounds muffled. "How will you live on a battlestar, Lee?"   
  
"Not all of us are natural exhibitionists, Kara!"  
  
"Such a pity, too."  
  
"Oh, shut up."  
  
"Are you done yet?"  
  
"Yeah, yeah," he says, tying the drawstring on his board shorts as she comes back into the room. Her hair is ruffled, evidence of her fast change, and she makes a point of sliding her gaze down over his bare chest.   
  
" _Nice_ , Apollo," she says, with a wink, before grabbing her towel and sunblock and ducking past. He just misses when he snaps his towel at her, and then he steps over her mess and follows her into the blinding sunshine.  
  
The beach isn’t the prettiest of the coastline, but that also means it’s not the most crowded, nor the most commercial, and the water is a brilliant blue. Kara stands and looks out to sea for a moment, and takes a deep breath. He does the same. The salty tang is strong in the air, and he can feel his muscles relaxing already. Nine days with nothing to think about. It seems like heaven.   
  
Kara’s already stripping off, her t-shirt gone and her shorts following quickly. She’s wearing a very nice black swimsuit, and Lee spends more than a moment covertly checking her out before tossing his own towel next to hers on the sand. The next minute, her sunblock flies at him and he just manages to snag it before it hits him in the face.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"Just checking your reflexes," she says innocently. "You passed. Do my back?"  
  
He’s tempted to write something funny in sunblock, but she’d kill him, so he rubs it in – her skin is warm and soft under his palms, and pale, although a week in the sun is likely to change that.  
  
"Mmm," she breathes out, and rolls her neck a little. "I want a backrub later, Apollo."

 

  
  
"If you buy me dinner."  
  
"So you do have a price! Mandy will be so pleased to know that."  
  
He rolls his eyes, and throws the tube back at her. She catches it neatly.  
  
"Do my back, please?"  
  
"Only because you asked nicely."  
  
*  
  
They spend the entire afternoon in the surf – well, Kara does. Lee swims back to shore after an hour and finds a nice spot on the sand in the shade, and falls asleep to the sounds of crashing waves and screeching seagulls.  
  
He's woken by a cold touch on his shoulder, and he blinks awake to find Kara sitting beside him.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Your back will burn," she says, and sure enough, he's lying in full sunlight now.  
  
"Oh. Thanks," he says, shaking his head to clear the sleep away, and turns over, lifting himself on his elbows. "What time is it?"  
  
"Sixteen hundred."  
  
He nods slowly. "Is it too early to eat?"  
  
She laughs. "Gods, no."  
  
"You’re a woman after my own heart," he says, as he gets to her feet.  
  
"Save it for Mandy," she retorts, but he notices her cheeks look a bit pink – and then he dismisses it as sunburn, because there’s no way Starbuck could be blushing.  
  
“You’ve got the first round,” he tells her, and she protests all the way back up from the shore.  
  
*  
  
He dozes off early on the first night – almost embarrassingly so, but three weeks of exams and pressure have left him with a backlog of tiredness that his nap on the beach did nothing to put a dent in.  
  
Besides, his bed is comfortable, and he can hear Kara clicking through tracks on her music player, and soon he’s almost completely asleep. He vaguely hears something rustle close by, and then the book he’s still holding onto slides away from his fingers, and a sheet is pulled up over him. Her shadow seems to linger a moment before she steps away, and he wants to thank her but moving anything is too much effort.   
  
The next second the light clicks off, and the blackness surrounds him completely.   
  
*  
  
It’s past 11 when Kara drags him out of bed the next morning – “You can’t sleep the entire day away, Lee!” – and it takes brunch and a coffee before he starts feeling even a little human again.   
  
The tiny chemist has a bin of toys out the front – perfect for long-suffering parents, Lee thinks idly, as he digs through it, waiting for Kara to pay for her bottle of water. Beach balls, water pistols, miniature tennis racquets. A skipping rope.  
  
Right down the bottom, under an old inflatable air mattress, he finds them. Lee smiles.  
  
He finds Kara paying, and dumps the two buckets and matching shovels on the counter next to her.  
  
The look she gives him makes him laugh out loud. “Oh, don’t be like that, Starbuck,” he says, pulling some change out of his pocket. “Look, I picked the pink set just for you.”  
  
“If you think I am going anywhere near that thing, Lee, you have another thing coming.”  
  
“Fine. If you’re scared of my castle-making prowess, you stay up here safe on the shore, Kara.”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“And then,” Lee says, with practiced timing, “Then you’ll have to live with the fact that I’m better at building sandcastles than you for the rest of your life.”  
  
Kara snatches the buckets off the counter. “I’m taking the blue,” she tells him. “Pink suits you more, anyway.”  
  
The sales girl is trying her best not to laugh, and Lee winks at her as he turns to leave. Kara’s already stalked outside.  
  
She glowers, all the way out of the shop, down along the beach, and down to the water. It isn’t until he’s selected a suitable patch of sand – not too wet, not too dry – for his castle and has sat down to fill his bucket that she gives a long sigh and sits down beside him.  
  
“So,” she says, waving her shovel in his face. “How exactly is this done, Adama?”  
  
“You’ve never made a sand castle?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“How is that even possible?”  
  
“I guess I never went to the beach when I was a kid.” She shrugs, and dumps a load of sand into her bucket.  
  
“You missed a fundamental part of your childhood, then,” he tells her, and something flickers across Kara’s face, raw and open and painful, and she digs her shovel into the sand with a little more force than Lee thinks is necessary.  
  
“Uh,” she starts, then pauses, and Lee feels terrible, so he flicks a handful of wet sand at her. “Lee!”  
  
“What?” he asks innocently, and picks up her pink shovel.  
  
“Oh, frak you!”  
  
There may be many things Lee doesn’t know about Kara Thrace, but there are a few he does, so he’s ready with his return attack when the contents of her bucket fly at him.   
  
It’s not his best save, and he knows that deep down something isn’t right but Kara laughs as he tackles her back into the sand, and the sunlight and water make her expression a little easier to forget.   
  
*  
  
They spend the second night getting drunk on cheap bottles of wine from the corner liquor store, sitting in between their beds playing a drinking game that Lee is sure that Kara made up, given how badly he’s losing. When most of the wine is gone and he can’t play cards anymore because all the numbers are blurring, he tosses them aside – to loud protests from Kara – and leans back against his bed.  
  
“I am so glad I’m here,” he says drowsily, staring up at the ceiling fan.  
  
“”Yeah?” Kara sits back opposite him and stretches her feet out.  
  
“I hate my family anyway.”  
  
He hears her sigh. “Me too.”  
  
“Families suck.”  
  
“Tell me about it.”  
  
“Seriously,” he says, nudging her hip with one foot. “Mine really, really sucks.”  
  
“Mine sucks more.”  
  
“Whatever, Kara.”  
  
“Whatever yourself,” she says, taking a swig out of the bottle. “This is one thing – one  _more_  thing – I will beat you at, Apollo.”  
  
“Yeah? Well, my Dad loves my brother more than me.”  
  
“At least you have a Dad. My Dad left when I was seven.”  
  
“My mother is a drunk.”  
  
“My mother beat the crap out of me.”  
  
His whole body freezes – clearly better at reacting than his brain, which takes a bit of time to catch up. “What?”  
  
Kara’s already got a face that he recognizes – the one she always wears when she’s really put her foot in it – and she brings her knees up to her chest. “Told you I’d win.” She smiles, but he’s having none of it. He sits up straight.  
  
“What did you frakking say?”  
  
“It’s okay, Lee – “  
  
“No, that is not okay, Kara.  _That is not okay._ ”  
  
She shrugs again. “Really? Because nobody cared.”  
  
He wants to shake her, get something out of her that isn’t  _acceptance_.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I went to hospital a million times, Lee. I had to have things set, and – because my mother was in the frakking fleet, nobody – “  
  
Kara breaks off, and in the half-light she looks so young, with her eyes wide and hurt and Lee leans out and pulls her into his arms before he thinks about all the reasons he shouldn’t. Kara stiffens before relaxing, almost curling her body into his. “I’m so sorry,” he says into her hair. “I’m so sorry.”  
  
She laughs into his neck. “Not your fault.”  
  
“Don’t care.”  
  
“Thanks,” she says after a moment, and he doesn’t push her.  
  
“Anytime.”  
  
“You win,” he says lightly. “Your family sucks way more.”  
  
“I always win.”  
  
“Brat.”  
  
He holds her until she tenses again in his arms, and then lets her go, and the conversation moves onto other, lighter things – the pyramid season, the new sim being installed at the academy. But even with the alcohol, when she finally falls asleep sprawled on his bed, all he can think about it what she told him.   
  
*  
  
The next day, neither of them mention the conversation of the night before, which is almost a relief because he has no idea what he’d say to her if she did bring it up. It’s hard not to watch her, though – not to see her with broken bones or a black eye, and the third time Kara catches him staring, she rolls her eyes.   
  
“What, Apollo?” she says. “Am I really that amazing?” Because she’s lying beside a pool, she’s not wearing all that much and Lee thinks the view  _is_  actually pretty amazing, but he's definitely not going to say so.  
  
He splashes her with water instead.   
  
By four that afternoon, it’s obvious Kara is sunburned, which she promptly blames on him, since it was apparently his fault for not applying enough sunblock to her back, despite the fact she'd fallen asleep beside the pool while he was off buying them both something to eat.  
  
After twenty minutes, Lee decides it's just easier to go along with her delusions than to argue any further, and Kara decides to drag him to the rather seedy-looking bar at the end of the street as his punishment. Luckily for him, the bar actually has an excellent menu and when the food comes, it lives up to the promise, and Lee's quite pleased with how things have turned out for precisely half the dinner, which is how long it takes Kara to reach for the cocktail list.  
  
She scans it quickly – he doesn't know why she's even looking at it, because ambrosia and beer are far more her drinks of choice than anything pink and fruity – and then she laughs and throws the card at him.  
  
"This bar would make Helo proud," she says, grinning.   
  
He reads his way down the list. There's the usual – Sex on the Beach, Screaming Orgasm, Mudslide Shooter – and then there's a few more original ones he hasn't seen before. Aphrodite's Nipple. Skip and Go Naked. Slow Grind. When he glances back at Kara, she's already grabbing her wallet.  
  
"No, Kara," he says half-heartedly, but it's too late and she's already out of her seat.  
  
"I've got the first round!"  
  
"That's not necessary!"  
  
"I'll get you Between the Sheets!" she calls over her shoulder, loud enough that several other patrons at the bar look over at him. One laughs. Lee drops his head into his hands.  
  
He should have known Kara would never let him off easy.  
  
*  
  
Two hours later, Lee thinks that he's going to have the worst hangover he's ever had, up to and including several spectacular nights out at the Bacchanalia Festival for the past two years. So far Kara's made him match her drink for drink, and she looks like she's getting a year’s worth of laughter out of seeing him stumble through the cocktail menu, trying to avoid anything that looks like it might be pink. He's running out of options and Kara seems to be only getting started.  
  
"So, what are we having next, flyboy?"  
  
He sighs and picks up the menu, and tries to pick something that doesn't look like it will come with an umbrella.  
  
"A Screwdriver?"  
  
"Hmm," Kara drawls, twirling a straw around her fingers. "I was thinking something else. Something a little more – exciting." Her voice drops so it's low and gravely, and it makes his skin tingle a bit. "Don't you want a Flaming Hard-on?"  
  
Lee can feel the tips of his ears turning red, and thinks  _frak it_ , and leans towards her, into what is assuredly her personal space.   
  
"Perhaps I'd prefer Sex on the Beach," he says, dragging one finger slowly along her arm, up to her shoulder.  
  
Kara's eyes widen appreciatively. "Maybe you can have them both," she says, and pops the straw in her mouth and drains the rest of her last cocktail in a way that would definitely make his mother blush.  
  
The bartender snorts with laughter, and Lee rolls his eyes and leans back. Kara slaps both palms on the bar.  
  
"Line 'em up," she says, and Lee groans.  
  
*  
  
“You are creasing my shirt,” he says, watching Kara sway a little on her feet despite the hand she has on his arm.  
  
“Mama’s boy.”  
  
“Brat. Just get the key out of your pocket.”  
  
“I don’t know why you care. You look better without one anyway.”  
  
“Say that again?”  
  
“Got it!” She waves the key at him, and he snatches it from her and holds it behind his back.  
  
“Password?”  
  
“Lee Adama is an annoying pain in the ass.”  
  
“Yeah, but you think I’m a  _hot_  annoying pain in the ass.”  
  
“You put in enough hours in the gym, Apollo,” she says, and Lee narrows his eyes because he’s pretty sure there’s a flush on her cheeks that wasn’t there a moment ago.  
  
“Are you blushing?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“You totally are. Aw, Kara, you think I’m hot?”  
  
“Unlock the frakking door, Adama.”  
  
“You do.”  
  
“I’m going to ram this umbrella up your nose in a minute.”  
  
“You wouldn’t.”  
  
“Try me.”  
  
“I’d love to.”  
  
“Really.”  
  
“Try me.”  
  
“Just open the door!”  
  
“Password?”  
  
She rolls her eyes and Lee laughs, and in that moment she tries to snatch the key from him and ends up falling into him and he almost goes over as well, but in the last second manages to find enough balance to keep them upright.  
  
“Well done, Thrace,” he says, as he sets her on her feet. “Spectacular – ”  
  
Her face is inches from his, and he loses the rest of his sentence as he takes in the curves of her cheekbones, and line of her lips. One of his hands slides up her arm without him even thinking about it, thumb rubbing the hollow of her throat.   
  
“Oh,” Kara says, and he sees her throat constrict as she swallows, “Lee,” and his name on her lips is breathy and full of a  _want_  he’s never heard before. Kara licks her lips and he leans in a little, bumps her nose with his.   
  
There’s a single moment where he has the chance to laugh, lean back and make some crack about how drunk he is, that he’d even  _think_  about kissing her but Kara’s eyes have already fluttered closed and her hands are resting on his chest and Lee kisses her, kisses her hard and pushes her into the door.  
  
She tastes of sugar and  _Kara_  and it’s completely intoxicating and Lee can’t help himself, curls one hand around the back of her neck and pulls her closer, closer. Kara arches her back, rubbing against him and Lee moans and wonders why they haven’t done this before, it’s so good, it feels  _right_.   
  
He pulls her knee up, and she hooks her heel around thighs and sort of shimmies against him and things are about to get very improper for a public location when he hears the sound of door opening not too far away. He drops her leg, manages to push her back enough to a respectable distance, just as an elderly man walks past them.  
  
“Evening,” the man says, looking amused, and Lee nods and smiles and tries not to look like he just had Kara’s leg around his waist and knows he’s failing completely.  
  
By the time the man rounds the corner, Kara is shaking with laughter beside him and he pries the keys from her hand.   
  
“Shut up,” he orders, and she just laughs harder. Kara’s mouth is red and her smile is wicked and he actually has to turn his body away from her so he can concentrate on opening the frakking door.  
  
She’s still laughing when the door shuts behind them, her eyes bright and he catches her by the waist and walks them both backwards until his knees hit the bed. Falls into it, taking Kara with him, yanks her mouth down to his again. She doesn’t resist.  
  
*  
  
When he wakes up it’s past three, and even in the pitch black, his head throbs and he needs water and painkillers. Kara’s sprawled on top of him, legs tangled with his and her fingers are clutching at his shirt.   
  
He smiles and goes back to sleep.   
  
*

The morning light hurts his eyes, and he rolls over to find the bed is empty beside him. He grimaces, then raises himself on his elbows and looks around the room.   
  
Three meters away, Kara’s toweling her hair dry, and he looks at her – shorts and a tank, nothing he hasn’t seen her in a hundred times before, but one long make-out session later, he knows what she tastes like and she’s mesmerizing.  
  
She turns and sees him awake and staring. Her face flushes.   
  
“Hi,” she says, looking self-conscious and all Lee can do is stare at her mouth. Sober, and he wants her  _more. Frak._  
  
“Kara,” he starts, and she turns slightly and brushes her hair back with her fingers.  
  
“Breakfast?” she offers quickly. “I’ll pay.”  
  
He moves experimentally and then groans. “A big breakfast. You owe me.”  
  
“Whatever. Get up.”  
  
He pulls a pillow over his face. It doesn’t shut out her voice.  
  
“Gods, Lee, you are such a lightweight. Hurry up and shower, flyboy. You look like shit.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah.”  
  
There’s a suspiciously long pause, and then the pillow is ripped away from his face. “Shower. Now. I’m hungry.”  
  
He gets up slowly. “I don’t know why I invited you,” he says, with all the seriousness he can muster while she’s standing there, skin glowing pink with yesterday’s sunburn.   
  
She rolls her eyes. “I’ll just be outside.”  
  
*  
  
Breakfast is awkward.  
  
So is swimming at the beach, and so is lunch – fish and chips on a little patio, facing out to sea. It’s well into the afternoon before things feel a little less stilted, and that’s only because Lee falls asleep and Kara takes great delight in pouring sand in piles all over his back.   
  
It’s comforting to know that even while she won’t meet his eyes, she can still act like a three year old.   
  
By the time dinner is over, Lee has a headache, and he wants one of his best friends talking to him again. He’d also like to kiss her some more, but from what he’s put together, Kara seems to think it was a mistake ranking up there with the time she got caught inside the Dean’s office with a bottle of spray paint.  
  
It hurts. Quite a bit, if he is being honest – he likes her, and he definitely likes  _kissing_  her and he doesn’t really see any logical reason why both things can’t coexist together for an indefinite amount of time. And from what he can remember about the somewhat fuzzy events of the night before, Kara didn’t seem to be too averse to the idea either.   
  
He has no idea what is going on in her head, but this is Kara and that’s a given ninety percent of the time.   
  
By the time the sun has set, Lee’s sick of it and drags her out, ostensibly for a walk along the beach but really to get some time where she can’t plead any other distraction to get out of talking to him. It seems like she knows what he’s up to, though, and ten minutes later he’s gritting his teeth because she just won’t shut up. It’s like she’s trying to fill anything that could become a dangerous silence with words, and they’re at least half a click away from civilization when he finally gets a word in.  
  
“Kara,” he starts, and she flinches.   
  
“Hey, the water is beautiful,” she says hastily, and he just  _knows_  what’s coming next. “It’s not cold at all.”  
  
Before he has a chance to say anything else, she shucks her shirt off and flings it carelessly away from her. Her fingers are on the tie of her shorts when she raises her head.  
  
“Kara,” he says helplessly.   
  
“Aren’t you coming in?” she says, and there’s too much skin around that godsdamned frakking bikini and the moonlight only emphasizes the curves that make her up. Lee swallows. Two days ago, he thinks, his body wouldn’t be reacting like it is but now –   
  
He clears his throat and looks out to sea. “It’s dangerous.”  
  
She snorts. “I promise we won’t go in over our heads,” she says dismissively. “Live on the edge a little, Adama.” Something hits his shoulder, and he pulls her shorts down and drops them like they burned him.   
  
She’s already walking backwards into the surf. “Coming?”   
  
He hesitates, but then the first wave hits her body and the way the water moves over her skin makes the decision for him. “If we drown, I’m blaming you,” he grouches, and she laughs.   
  
“Hurry up, Lee.”  
  
“The ocean is going nowhere.”  
  
“Whatever.”  
  
He strips quickly, keeps his back to her, and when he wades into the water she’s staring out at the horizon, at the moon.  
  
“See? Wasn’t this a good idea?”  
  
He's not quite willing to concede on that point, especially when a wave knocks him off balance and into Kara. His fingers find bare skin, and by the time he's worked out what part of her he's grabbed – her waist, thank the gods – he's been touching her a while and Kara's frozen. And he knows that if today has taught him anything, it’s that Kara thinks that any kind of close contact is a mistake, but he wants her and maybe it’s worth one more try.  
  
He can barely make out anything – her back is now to the moon, and so he can’t see the expression on her face as he slides his hands up her arms to her shoulders to her neck to her cheeks so he can hold her still. She doesn’t protest, and for a moment they stand there, water washing around them, and he feels almost paralyzed with indecision.   
  
Then Kara shifts, and he feels her hands land on his shoulders and she’s not pushing him away.   
  
“Lee?” she says, almost an exhale, and it’s enough of an opening and so he dips his head the last fraction of an inch and kisses her. It’s instant, Kara’s reaction – she opens her mouth against his and he tastes salt this time, and it’s last night all over again only  _better_  because there is bare skin beneath his fingers and neither of them are drunk.  
  
A wave nearly washes both of them off balance, and Kara tightens her arms around him, one leg curling around his hip, and Lee reflects briefly that this is the best vacation ever before the feel of her becomes all he can think.   
  
*  
  
They take way too long to get back to their room – he keeps stopping to kiss her, and she can’t keep her hands to herself, and a few times he just stops himself from laying her down in the sand and making love to her right there on the beach. Only the promise of a more comfortable setting keeps him going, and by the time they get to their door, he can’t make the key turn in the lock, he’s so distracted. When the door is finally open, he doesn’t give her time to react, and just stops short of tackling her back onto the bed. She laughs breathlessly, shifting her legs apart, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders.  
  
“We are covered in sand,” she tells him, her fingers running down his spine.  
  
“There’s another bed over there,” he tells her, and pulls her up off the bed enough that he can strip her shirt from her body.   
  
His shirt lands on top of hers, followed by the black swimsuit that has taunted him all day, and he’s fumbling with his shorts when he looks up to see her looking at him, and something about the intensity on her face makes him want to ask how long she’s felt like this about him – how long she’s watched him and wanted this.   
  
Then she sits up and reaches for him, and the next minutes dissolve into long hot kisses, her hands sliding down his skin, the friction with the sand almost-but-not-quite-painful; his senses on overload as she writhes underneath him. Before he knows what is happening, she’s hooked her leg over his hip and has rolled him beneath her, pinning him with her weight before leaning in to kiss him.   
  
It doesn’t take long before she’s shifting more deliberately, and before they cross that line he suddenly has to know that she’s as okay with this as he is, so he lifts one hand from her back and cups her chin, forcing her to look at him. Her cheeks and lips are red, hair disheveled and her pupils so dilated that pride flashes through him, that he can make her look like  _that_.  
  
“Are you sure?” he says quietly and she nods fast, and he can see desperation and lust and something softer in her eyes, and he pulls her down and kisses her hard before letting her sit up. Kara braces herself, hands on his shoulders and sinks down and takes him into her.   
  
He’s imagined this a few times; he’s male, and she’s Starbuck and he’s pretty sure there isn’t a guy in the Academy who hasn’t had the odd dream about her. He’s also heard the stories of her prowess in bed, but this – this is nothing like any of it.   
  
She’s almost tentative, slow – her hands gentle, careful, and she’s watching his face and body for reactions with an intensity that surprises him for the three seconds he thinks about it before her fingers drive away every shred of coherent thought. In no time at all, he’s close, so close and she’s nowhere near in comparison, and he clenches his jaw and pushes her over, pulls out of her and pins her hands next to her head.   
  
“Not yet,” he grits out and she shivers, her legs shifting, wrapping around his hips, trying to pull him back to her. He’s just stronger.   
  
“No?” Her voice is breathless.   
  
“No,” he tells her, and presses a series of hot, wet kisses to her mouth, her jaw, and down her throat, until she’s squirming beneath him.   
  
Her neck tastes like salt – the ocean, sweat, traces of sunblock that the water didn’t wash away. After a moment, he lets go of her hands, she wraps her arms around him, her fingers digging into his back. He hovers off her, leans his weight on one arm and slides his other hand down her body, a slow drag across her breasts and stomach that has her head rocking back hard into the pillows, her back arching, her hips pushing up off the bed.   
  
Gods, he thinks, it’s the hottest thing he’s ever seen, and he’s barely started touching her.   
  
“Lee,” she says, “Oh,  _Lee_ ,” and her fingernails are now biting into his shoulders, and Lee decides that he’s going to make her say that many more times before the night is over.   
  
*  
  
He’s drifting in and out of consciousness when he feels her come awake underneath his arm. It’s some gods-awful hour in the morning – the last time he remembered looking at the clock, it was after three, and he stays completely still as she pulls herself carefully out of bed. She goes to the bathroom, and he hears the unmistakable sound of her brushing her teeth, then the sound of her bare feet on the floor as she makes her way back to the bed. He almost doesn’t breathe as she slides in next to him, edging slowly until her back touches his chest.   
  
In what he hopes she will think is a sleep-soaked gesture, he hooks an arm around her waist and pulls her to him so she fits against him. She sighs, and a moment later, rests her fingers against his. Within minutes, her breathing has evened out, and her body is soft, relaxed under his arm.  
  
He grins into the darkness.  
  
*  
  
This time, when he wakes up, Kara’s still asleep beside him. At some point during the last hours, she’d shifted so she’s curled up facing him, with one hand resting on the pillow between them. One of his arms is still wrapped around her, and he’d be content to lie like this for the rest of the day, but his other arm is starting to twinge with pain from the position it’s in.   
  
He extracts it as carefully as possible, and stretches, feeling muscles he hasn’t used in a while ache pleasantly, and the movement wakes Kara, because her head tosses a bit against the pillow before her eyes open. He watches as she blinks in the sunlight, getting her bearings, and knows the exact moment all of last night comes back to her because her cheeks flush.   
  
“Hey,” she says, and she looks a little nervous.   
  
“Hey.” He props himself on one elbow and runs a hand down her side, over the faint tan lines starting to appear, and she rolls onto her back. Kara’s all smooth skin and toned muscle, and Lee looks down the length of her – for too long, it would seem, because Kara laughs. He feels his face go a bit red and says the first thing he can think of.   
  
“Hungry?”   
  
“Yes,” she says instantly, but the look she sends him hits him straight in the groin, and it’s suddenly very convenient that they didn’t put on any clothes again after last night’s efforts.   
  
*  
  
She slips out while he’s showering, because when he emerges there’s a newspaper and a magazine on the tiny table, and she’s putting fresh beer in the fridge. He wanders over and looks at what she’s picked up – a  _Caprican Daily_  as well as a copy of the political monthly  _Prospect_.  
  
He’s reaching for it when Kara turns around from the kitchenette.   
  
“Hey, hands off,” she says, coming back to the table and taking it off him. She sinks into a seat and lays it out in front of her.   
  
“ _You’re reading_  it?”   
  
Her look implies how stupid a question that was, and he back-pedals.   
  
“I mean – since when did you start reading this?”  
  
Kara looks a bit self-conscious. “A while ago. Why?”  
  
“Nothing,” he says, but he is honestly surprised. Not that he expected Kara to pick up the latest  _Colonial Style_ , but …  _Prospect?_  
  
“What?” she says, still looking edgy, and he shrugs, and reaches for the paper instead. She slaps his hand away.   
  
“Hey!”   
  
“Go buy your own, if you’re going to be insulting!”   
  
“I didn’t say anything!”   
  
She shoots him a look. “You don’t think I’m smart enough to read these.” Her tone is light, but it’s not quite a question, and he picks his response very carefully.  
  
“Of course you’re smart enough,” he says dismissively, and Kara’s face relaxes. “I just didn’t think you were into politics.”   
  
She snorts. “What, you thought I could listen to your boring lectures for the last year and not pick up on it?”   
  
“Hey, now who’s being insulting – ”  
  
“Whatever, Apollo. You could talk anyone to sleep. That’s just a fact.”  
  
He rolls his eyes, inwardly very pleased that she’s been listening so closely to his painstakingly composed rants about the Colonial political systems.   
  
“Kara.”  
  
“Yes, Lee?”   
  
“Can I please read the paper?”  
  
“Are you making me a coffee?”  
  
He takes that as qualified permission, and once he’s made them both coffee, he settles down with his and flicks open to the crossword, stealing glances at her when he thinks he can get away with it. She looks different to any time he’s ever seen her, engrossed in her reading, chin resting in her palm. Different, but good.   
  
“Did you know,” she says suddenly, “That out of the twelve colonies, there are only seven that consider themselves fundamentally religious?”   
  
“Yeah,” he says idly, trying to work out which fish of the Aegean Sea was meant by clue 4 down. “What brought that up?”  
  
“The Leonians want a referendum over some of the wording in their constitution. They want to separate the gods and the state.”  
  
“Yeah, I’d heard something about that.” He glances up. “Religion is nothing but trouble anyway.”   
  
Kara’s face tightens – a warning sign Lee has seen too many times not to know what it meant. In bars, it tended to mean he was ten seconds away from watching her start a brawl.  
  
“Well, in terms of politics,” he amends hastily, but Kara doesn’t seem too placated by that.   
  
“Why do you say that?’ she says, far too politely, and Lee knows he’s put his foot in it.   
  
“Just look at the mess the Colonies are in,” he says, putting his pen down. “Half of that is caused by religious differences.”  
  
“That’s a total exaggeration. Humans were always going to fight, Lee. If it wasn’t religion, it’d be over something else.”  
  
“So you’re saying that it’s fine that we have religion so we don’t fight about other things?”  
  
“No. But I think it’s necessary for humanity to have something greater than themselves to believe in. Otherwise we’d be, I don’t know, dangerously arrogant. Look what happened with the Cylons.”  
  
He can’t quite believe he’s having this discussion with Kara Thrace.  
  
“The Cylons are a mistake that is long gone, and I still say more fighting has happened over religion than any kind of peace.”  
  
“What about all the aid organizations that exist as part of religious organization?”   
  
“Tell that to the people who died at Thessalonica last year.”  
  
Kara eyes narrow at the mention of the massacre that left 1,000 civilians dead the previous summer. “That was masking a political coup and you know it, Lee.” She pauses. “You don’t believe in the gods at all, do you?”  
  
“You  _do_?” He can’t quite keep the surprise from his voice. Kara meets his gaze without flinching.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Did you get that from your parents?”   
  
The minute the question is out of his mouth, he regrets it, but Kara doesn’t flinch.   
  
“No,” she says, and then half-laughs. “Gods, no. My father was a musician. He believed in free love just like my mother believed in the Fleet.”  
  
“Why do you believe?” he asks quietly, honestly curious and Kara hesitates. Lee wonders if he’s pushed this newfound intimacy a little too far.   
  
When she answers, her voice has dropped so much he almost has to lean forward to hear her. “There was a Temple at the end of my street, where we lived for a while.” She shrugged. “It was a … place to go, sometimes? And I guess it’s easy to believe in something when you have nothing.”  
  
He’s silent.  
  
Kara shrugs after a moment, and picks up her coffee again. “Good coffee,” she offers, and he takes it for the truce it is. “Let me know when you need help on the crossword.”  
  
“Frak off.”  
  
*  
  
They don’t make it outside for much of the rest of the day, which Lee is totally okay with, even if they sleep half the afternoon to make up for the night before. The first time they leave their unit for an extended amount of time is to eat dinner, which she insists they have at the little Athenian restaurant halfway up the block. She even wears a skirt, for the first time in his memory – a simple navy blue thing that swishes around her legs in a way that makes him just want to rip it off her.   
  
The meal is torture too – watching her eat, now that he knows what that mouth can do, and he wouldn’t have been at all surprised if that had been Kara’s master plan. By the end of the main course, it’s gotten so bad that when Kara orders ice-cream for dessert, he goes to the bar and gets another beer, and when he comes back, he moves his chair around the table so he’s sitting closer to her, just so he won’t have to watch her eat.   
  
Of course, there are other advantages to that, especially with the long tablecloths on the tables. Just as she puts the first spoonful of ice cream in her mouth, he places his hand on her knee. She starts, and he feels her leg twitch as he slides his hand up under her skirt – not too high and not too fast, running his fingers lightly over what he knows is very, very sensitive skin. He’s got about four inches before it gets really improper, and soon Kara’s worrying her lip between her teeth.   
  
“Okay,” she says finally, and one of her hands finds his under the table and tries to lift it of her leg. “You’ve made your point.”  
  
“What do you mean?” he says, pushing up another inch.   
  
“ _Lee_  – ” She shifts restlessly in her seat, thighs trembling a little, and Lee smirks.   
  
“Eat your ice cream,” he says, taking his hand away, and if looks could kill, he’d be dead. It’s so worth it, though, because Kara grabs her wallet, chucks enough on the table to cover the meal and at a thirty percent tip, and drags him out.   
  
It’s a waste of good ice cream, but he can’t bring himself to care.   
  
*  
  
One thing he does notice very quickly over the next two days is that for a girl who can strip off his clothes in under a minute, Kara is really, really bad at anything resembling couple-like behavior. Lee hasn’t had too many girlfriends in his life – two, in fact – but he’s had enough to know that reaching for her hand on the way to lunch shouldn’t be anything strange. Kara reacts like a startled horse, shying away, before she shakes her head and, wincing, lets her hand swing next to his again.   
  
He laces his fingers through hers as if there was nothing unusual in her reaction.   
  
It takes three more times before she reaches for him first.   
  
*  
  
“I wonder if results are up,” he says idly. Kara doesn’t even look over from where she’s reading the paper, lying on her stomach on a towel in the shade next to the pool.   
  
“McCarthy said they wouldn’t be until at least the twentieth.”  
  
“Yeah, I know,” he says, but now he’s remembering the mess he made of his physics paper, and maybe the results are up early -  
  
“Look, Lee,” Kara says, interrupting his interior monologue. “Just relax. It’s only been a week.”   
  
“I’m trying,” he says. “I’m just worried about physics – “  
  
She snorts. “Because getting a distinction instead of high honors is really going to screw you over.”   
  
“Not all of us are happy with credits, Kara,” he counters, stung by her dismissive tone. “Aren’t you at least a bit worried?”   
  
“I know I passed, and that’s all that matters.”  
  
“Maybe to  _you_.”  
  
“Hey, I studied hard this semester,” Kara retorts. “But it’s not like you can change your results now and you know you did okay, so just … let it go.”  
  
“Easy for you to say,” he says snidely, and Kara does turn her head this time. He’s not being fair and he knows it – Kara started the year about eightieth out of the 130 cadets left at the Academy, and now she’s in the top thirty and still moving up.   
  
“Hey, I studied my ass off,” she tells him sharply. “And I know I’ll get where I need to go based on how well I can fly, nothing else.”  
  
“Well, not all of us can break all the rules in the sims and get away with it.”  
  
It’s a low blow, as he knows that’s the easiest things to say to make her mad. It’s true that Kara didn’t exactly fly by the book in her first semester, but now she does and still blows everyone out of the sky. Including him.   
  
Kara opens her mouth, closes it again, and turns the page of her newspaper. “Go check your results,” she tells him, and there’s enough of an edge in her voice that he knows that he’s not going to get any more conversation out of her unless he does, and then possibly not even then.   
  
So he goes, and after he’s paid to use a computer to connect to the Caprican mainframe and the Academy screen has flashed up  _Results not available_ , he spends twenty minutes walking along the beach to get rid of his frustration, because none of this is Kara’s fault – she’s probably the only person in the Academy who doesn’t put pressure on him, academically or otherwise, who doesn’t continually expect him to live up to his father's reputation or his callsign.   
  
When he finally returns to the pool, Kara’s finished her paper and has stolen his book on Leonian astronomy. He silently offers her the ice cream he’d bought as a peace offering.   
  
She takes it. “How did you go?”  
  
“They’re not up.”   
  
Kara nods and says nothing more, and he doesn’t ask for his book back.   
  
*  
  
Things don’t go completely back to normal until it starts raining late in the afternoon, a real monsoonal downpour and Kara drags him out to play some weird form of pyramid that seems to involve him getting tackled into the wet grass as much as possible.   
  
By the time she’s rammed her elbow into his gut a few times and left a few bruises on his arms, she’s laughing like the morning’s conversation hadn’t happened and he’s absolutely drenched, mud and grass all over him. The rain-soaked grass soon proves it has its own dangers, because he's running with the ball when Kara grabs his shoulder, and he loses his balance and falls flat on his back, and Kara falls flat on top of him.   
  
The impact drives all the air from his lungs, and he thinks he might be winded but he isn’t prepared to move enough to find out.  
  
Kara shifts. "Ow," she says, dropping her head onto his shoulder.   
  
"Excuse me?"   
  
She laughs, pushing herself up on one elbow. "You aren't exactly a pillow, Apollo. Too much hard ...  _muscle_."   
  
Her leer is so pointed that he can't help it, he just throws his head back and laughs as much as he can with Kara still sprawled mostly on top of him. Kara grins back at him and runs a hand through her hair, crinkling her nose at the muddy water that rains down as a result.   
  
“Gross,” he says, once he can breathe again, and she flicks even more at him, then pulls herself to her feet and grabs the ball.   
  
“Still game?”   
  
“You’re insatiable,” he tells her, pushing himself up slowly.   
  
“You should know,” she retorts slyly and he rolls his eyes.  
  
“Give me the ball, Thrace. I’ll show you how it’s done.”  
  
“I’m looking forward to it.”  
  
*  
  
He tries to go running on the seventh morning, and Kara wakes up just as he’s pulling on the first of his socks. Before he’s aware of what’s happening, two arms have wrapped around his stomach and she’s pressed herself into his back. He thinks it’s pathetic that she’s not even trying and he’s half turned on.  
  
“Where are you going?”  
  
“Running,” he says. “I would have thought that was obvious.”  
  
Kara huffs, and her exhale against his neck makes him shiver. “Now?”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“Because it’s six in the morning and it’s practically dark outside, and it’s probably still raining and you are not going to lose your fitness in a week, Lee.”  
  
“It isn’t raining. And you know that in even a week – ”  
  
“An athlete can lose twenty per cent of their cardio, yes, Lee, I listened to Cameron, too.”  
  
“Then – “  
  
“We’ll go this afternoon,” she interrupts. “There’s a nice track up to the lookout that I’ll whip your ass on.”  
  
“Unlikely.”  
  
“Put the shoes down.”  
  
“Kara…”  
  
“Lee…” she mimics.  
  
He picks up his other sock. Kara sighs and pulls herself away from his back, and he hears her flop back into the bedding.  
  
"I'll see you in an hour," he says, reaching for his shoes. "I won't be that long."  
  
“Before you go," she says, and he can tell just from her voice that her smile is wicked, "I can think of plenty of other ways that you can get a good workout right now.”  
  
"Kara!"  
  
"Lee," she says, and her voice is breathy, and he knows she's just putting it on but the last time she sounded like that, they were –  
  
He turns to look at her, and she's lying back against the pillows, and of course, she’s still naked. Very naked.  
  
"I frakking hate you," he says, dropping his shoes on the floor. She lifts one eyebrow.  
  
It's a pretty good workout, all things considered.  
  
*  
  
She stays true to her word, and that afternoon they do go running – and she does kick his ass, but mostly so he can look at hers the whole time.  
  
*  
  
Day eight dawns fine – the rain has made everything green, and the sky is clear and blue right to the horizon. Kara’s sitting next to him on a park table, legs mostly bare and golden brown from a week in the sun. He feels almost absurdly happy – the weather is beautiful, he’s tired from another fantastic night of sex with Kara and he’s got twenty-four more hours before he needs to think about the Academy.  
  
“I didn’t plan this,” he says, and her fingers go loose in his. When he turns to glance at her, she’s staring out to sea.  
  
“I sort of figured that," she replies, lightly enough that a week ago he might have been fooled. Not anymore. He’s becoming quite well acquainted with Kara Thrace’s self-loathing streak, and while he now has some idea where it comes from, he has no clue as to how to unravel it.   
  
He tightens his hand around hers. “I had thought about it, though,” he says cheerfully.   
  
“Really?” Kara says, after a moment, and the doubt in her voice settles it for him.  
  
It wasn’t quite a lie – he had thought about it occasionally, mostly drunk while someone else was kissing Kara in a dark corner of a pub or club – but this thing between them bubbled up out of nowhere for him. A welcome surprise, certainly, but he’s pretty sure that’s not the most tactful thing to say to a woman who seems to have wanted you for longer than that. He lets go of her hand and wraps his arm around her shoulders, pulls her close enough to press a kiss into her hair.  
  
When he next sneaks a look at her face, she’s smiling.   
  
***  
  
They spend the last of the day on the beach, right up until the sun sets. Then they get hamburgers and chips and go up to the lookout overlooking the tiny bay, and sit on the edge, swinging their feet.   
  
It’s dark by the time they’ve finished eating, and Lee crumples the wrappers in a ball.  
  
“Six months until next break,” Kara says, sounding mournful.  
  
“Counting down already?”  
  
She flashes a smile at him. “Nah, it’s not that bad. I could use a proper income, though.”  
  
“What, triad not keeping you liquid anymore?”  
  
“There’s only so many more times I can take Dozer’s money before I think he’s going to cry.”  
  
“And you care?”   
  
“It wouldn’t be good for morale,” Kara says loftily, and it’s such a perfect imitation of Devlin, their ethics lecturer, that Lee laughs.   
  
“Kara Thrace. Always thinking of others.”  
  
“You know me.”  
  
He grins and reaches for his beer. “So, what do you want to do? What are the future grand plans of Kara Thrace?”  
  
“Next semester?”   
  
“No. After the Academy.”  
  
Kara shrugs. “Fly Vipers?” She licks one of her fingers clean of salt. “I hadn’t thought much about it. Maybe teaching? Something to do with flying,” she adds, as if that should have been obvious.   
  
“There’s big money in commercial,” he offers, and her face is almost comical.   
  
“No way, Lee.”   
  
“Such a jock,” he teases, and she shoves him.   
  
“Why, what are you planning? Off to join the circus?”  
  
“Tempting…”  
  
“You know, I could see you in lycra.”  
  
“… but no,” he says, shoving her back. “I’ll give the trapeze a miss, thanks very much.”   
  
“Aren’t you basically enrolled in War College anyway? I just assumed that was where you were going.”   
  
He shifts. “Well, yeah. But that’s only because of my Dad.”  
  
“Bullshit. You’re the best in our year, Lee. Of course they want you.”   
  
The compliment, especially from her, makes him feel warm inside. “Say that again?”  
  
“Except in sims, where I clearly kick your ass.”  
  
He laughs, and they fall silent.   
  
“I don’t know, though,” he says, looking up at the sky. “I don’t know if the Fleet is where I really want to end up.”  
  
“Really?” The surprise on her face is so obvious. “Because of your Dad?”   
  
“Yeah,” he says, grateful he doesn’t have to explain any more.   
  
“Fair enough,” she says, after a moment. “But wouldn’t you miss flying?”  
  
He nods slowly, because he would – which he hates, because it makes him his father’s son, and sometimes he’s not sure that’s all he wants to be.   
  
“I could never give up flying,” Kara says simply. “There’s nothing like it.” She’s looking up at the stars, and her face is open and so beautiful and he shifts so his shoulder is just touching hers.   
  
“I know what you mean.”  
  
After a moment, the silence seems to get to her and she reaches for another bottle of beer.   
  
“Anyway,” she says, her tone much brighter, “I guess that’s a while away.”  
  
“At least a year,” he says. “Hey. Hands off. You’ve had two already.”  
  
“It’s not my fault you can’t keep up.”  
  
*  
  
When Lee wakes up, Kara’s so tangled around him he can barely move his head enough to check the time. It’s past eight thirty, which is bad, because their check-out time is ten, so he wakes her – a task in itself – and by the time they actually make it out of bed, it’s closer to nine.   
  
He’s sorting through a pile of stuff on her bed, trying to work out what’s clean and what’s dirty when she wanders past and dumps an armload of things on his freshly sorted piles.  
  
“I can’t believe the break’s over already,” she says, oblivious to his protests.   
  
“Hey, do you mind? And yeah, I know. I guess it’s back to the real world?”   
  
She seems to pause mid-step, and then keeps going on her way to the bathroom.   
  
“I guess,” she says, but her voice is flat.   
  
He’s looking around for a plastic bag for his wet towel when she re-emerges with her arms full of shampoo bottles and toothpaste.   
  
“Well, it’s been fun,” she says, but something in her tone strikes him as ominous, as does the way she’s throwing things into her bag.   
  
“What?”   
  
“Should have known,” she mutters under her breath, and he’s not sure if he was meant to hear it, but now nothing is making sense.   
  
“What the frak are you talking about?”  
  
“Okay, Lee,” she says, straightening.   
  
“Okay?”   
  
“Yeah,” she says, but she’s holding a tank in a death grip and her eyes are blazing. “It’s been a good week away, but now it’s back to the real world, so… “  
  
“And so, what? It’s over?”   
  
She doesn’t respond, now pummeling her clothes into her duffel so hard he’s surprised the seams don’t break, and something rises within him and he’s furious. He can see the hickey he put on her neck and her hair is still wet from their shower, and she’s wearing his frakking t-shirt and  _this was it?_  “So what, I was your frak of the week?”   
  
She flinches, and then squares her shoulders. “I’m surprised you allowed yourself to stoop so low.”  
  
“Trust me, it was hard.”  
  
“Yeah, it must have been for the great  _Apollo_.” Only Kara could make his callsign sound so much like an insult.  
  
“Then it’ll be all the nicer as a notch on your bed post.”   
  
She exhales like he’d punched her. “You bastard,” she says, and for the first time there’s a shake in her voice, but he just doesn’t frakking care.   
  
“I’m the bastard? I’m not the one standing here saying thanks, you know, but that’s it – ”  
  
“You’re the one who is ending it!”  
  
That was the last thing he expected, and now it really feels like he’s woken in the middle of a particularly crazy dream. “What the frak are you talking about?”   
  
“You just said!  _Back to the real world._  I get it, Lee.”   
  
And then it clicks, and Lee sinks down on a bed and thinks of her mother and broken bones and how Kara never had anyone stick around long enough to learn how to hold their hand.   
  
She’s still going, still not looking at him. “Yeah, it was a fun week away, we frakked, it was great – ”  
  
“Shut up, Kara.”  
  
“ – but now it’s back to the Academy – ”  
  
“Shut  _up_ , Kara!”  
  
Miraculously, she actually does.   
  
“I’m not – ” he starts, and then scrubs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know why you thought it but I don’t want this to be over. So if that’s what you think… “  
  
She’s still just standing there, t-shirt clenched in one hand, and Lee wonders if maybe he got it wrong after all. “Although, if you – ”   
  
Kara seems to deflate. “No,” she interrupts, sitting down opposite him. “No. Gods. I’m sorry, it’s just – I’m crap at relationships, okay?”  
  
He laughs. “Join the club.”   
  
She lifts an eyebrow, and he elaborates. “The longest relationship I’ve had was two months, and that was with my brother’s baby-sitter.”  
  
“Kinky.”  
  
“Shut up,” he says, fighting back a smile born as much from relief as from actual amusement. “Let’s just … see how this goes, okay?”  
  
Kara nods. “Okay.”   
  
“No pressure.”   
  
“Okay,” she repeats, and her lips twitch. “I’m glad we got that sorted out.”  
  
He shakes his head and laughs, feeling somewhat like he’s just pulled out of a Washburne Gauntlet, his lungs tight from too many Gs.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he offers after a minute, and he throws a pair of socks at her.   
  
“What for?”  
  
“For making you think – “   
  
“Me too.” The pair of socks hit him in the face, and she laughs. “Where are your reflexes, Apollo?”   
  
He leans across the gap between the beds and kisses her.   
  
In the end, they do just check out in time, but it’s close.   
  
*  
  
She falls asleep against the window again on the way home, and he feels a certain amount of masculine pride at wearing her out that much. He lets her sleep, and she wakes up as they pull into the dorm car park, smoothing her rumpled hair and stretching.   
  
“You shouldn’t have let me sleep.”  
  
“You looked like you needed it,” he says, teasing, and she throws him a grin.   
  
“Yeah, someone wore me out,” she tells him, lifting her arms above her head and tilting her neck from side to side. “Bastard.”   
  
He laughs, and gets out, and stretches for a moment – it feels good after five hours cramped in a car seat, and then he realizes there’s a small group of cadets sitting in the sun on the lawn, watching with great interest as Kara gets out and pulls her duffel out from behind her seat. Lee knows it’s only a matter of time before one of them says something – Apollo and Starbuck are always high up in the Academy gossip list and this is a frakking goldmine.   
  
Sure enough –   
  
“Back from a romantic week away, huh?” Flipper calls and Lee sees Kara flicks a glace in his direction. He knows exactly how unsure she is that he’ll own to being with her, and by now the whole group is waiting for some kind of response.   
  
He thinks  _frak it_ , and circles around to her side of the car.   
  
“Something like that,” he tells the crowd over his shoulder, and hooks his fingers around the strap of Kara’s duffel bag and tugs her in close to his body, dips his head and kisses her properly, back into the door of his truck. She makes a startled yelp and he feels her smile and his classmates behind him burst into wolf whistles and cat calling. It’s showy and over the top and not  _him_ , but Kara’s laughing against his mouth, and her arms are wrapped around his neck.   
  
It’s going to be a much better semester.  
  
FIN.  
  
*


End file.
